I have made it back to Atlanta safely. I left my aunt’s at 6:42AM this morning and checked in at the airport around 7:30. I tried to carry on my bag, but the attendant at the terminal made me check it during boarding. It had developed a small rip close to the zipper. Luckily, the connecting flight home from Pittsburgh was on the same aircraft, so US Airways didn’t have a chance to jack-up my baggage transit.

I landed in Atlanta at 1:30PM and picked up my bag and discovered that the little rip was now a tear that extended 2/3 of the length along the zipper. I stopped in by the baggage counter to:
1. Collect reimbursement for the clothes (~$70) I had to buy while waiting for my bag to get to me in New Jersey (which took 41 hours) .
2. Complain about the damage my bag had recieved between Pittsburgh and Atlanta (i’d borrowed my roommate’s old college cheerleading travel bag for the trip).

US Airways took my receipts andwrote a check for the clothes I bought, but refused to pay for the damaged bag. They said that they did not pay for damage related to the zipper and that my bag seemed overstuffed (which it probably was; as it was 60° in Atlanta, I had packed my winter coat into the bag). I i’m not sure whether the bag can be repaired, or how upset my roommate will be. I know that his mom is something of a seamstress, so she may be able to repair it for him/me.

Speaking of my roommate, he is apparently away on a skiing trip and has been quite busy in my room. I returned to find about half of my DVDR’s missing (~12), and a DVD project open on my computer using a program that he installed in my absence. Heh… maybe i’ll call it even for his damaged luggage! 🙂

I will (try to) get photos from my christmas trip up within the week… as well as make icons for the last series of posts that have none.

Its the day after Christmas. This morning my father and my aunt (fraternal twins, by the way) mentioned a news story about US Airways losing 1,000 bags of flying travelers over the past 2-3 days, and sure enough 15 minutes later a short report about it came up on the tv news… only it was 10,000 and not 1,000!

Apparently, US Airways baggage handlers have been having a tiff of sorts with the airline, which led to a large fraction of them calling in sick/taking leave for this christmas season. 10,000 bags were stranded at Philadephia International Airport (which is the same airport I had my connecting flight from). According to the report, 2/3 of the bags had been forwarded to their correct destinations (including mine, i suppose) leaving a mere 3,000 to be delivered. This also helps to explain why I have still been having trouble getting through to get my expenditures (in leiu of having my bag with my clothes and essentials) authorized. My return flight is one-way, but I plan to not-check any bags… for convenience (and just to be safe).

Also, I have finished The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. A short review will soon follow (I am on dialup up here and don’t want to tie up the phone line for too long). Not a bad book. It had some historical references in it that make me curious as to their validity and accuracy. I’ll probably wait until I am back in Atlanta to research it a little bit.

Its 2:12 and I am supposed to be going to the mall with Jessica today, but no word from her yet. I think our 2-3 person trip to the mall has turned into a shopping outing with my sister and Jessica’s mother, Aunt Daphne. Aunt Daphne and Uncle Robin gave me very generious christmas gifts, and I brought them nothing from Atlanta (I did try to shop before my flight, but didn’t find anything good enough to give as a gift). I will buy them something this week and either give it to them, or send it via mail (depending on whether i find something here, or back in Georgia).

-EDIT-
Went to Freehold Mall with Simone, Jessica, and Aunt Daphne around 3’ish. It was moderately crowded. On the way back we stopped at White Castle for dinner. I ate 7 cheeseburgers. On a related note, Jessica and I were talking about movies and she told me that she did like Harold & Kumar Go to White castle, but she did *not* like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Both flicks are set in Jersey about a pair stoner-pals… so I didn’t understand why she thought that Jay and Silent Bob was stupid. I haven’t seen Harold & Kumar yet, but I plan to grab the DVD on Jessica’s reccomendation. It comes out January 4, 2005.

Merry Christmas! Jessica & Omar came over with their parents to my aunt’s place and we had a very nice dinner. Cousin Earle and his family made an appearance much later at night. I was REALLY surprised to find pansit on the menu! It was actually ‘mae fan’ or something, but I know pansit when I see pansit!

My lovely lovely lovely cousin Jessica lent me a novel to read! The DaVinci code! I started it today and am about 1/3 of the way through it. She is currently reading ‘I am Charlotte Simmons’ by Thomas Wolfe. Its gotten a lot of press on NPR in the past few weeks. I might ask her to loan it to me after she’s finished with it. In the meantime, I plan to lend her ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ when I get back to Atlanta. I’ll have to hurry, though… she heads back toRutgers halfway through January, where she doesn’t have the time to do any pleasure reading.

Jessica is supposed to drive me to the mall tomorrow. I think my sister might come, too. I have to buy a gift for Nicole for moving my car out of the MARTA lot to save me a little bit of money (more about that later).

News: The bag that US Airways lost was found. They called early around 9:30AM to report that it would be delivered. It arrived here at my aunt’s house at 2:30pm. All contents intact! I was very happy to get my bag, but not happy about being unable to reach baggage service about a refund for essentials that I had to buy.

Today, my folks, aunt, and I all went over to visit more of our family living 10 minutes from my aunt in Howell, NJ. I got to see 3 of my cousins that I haven’t seen in a few years. I think that I might have found a kindred spirit of sorts in my cousin Jessica. She seems to share a few interests/habits with me that noone else in my family does. I was surprised to hear that she was graduating this coming semester! She’s considering grad school. If she goes, then i’ll definitely have to go to grad school as well. (I can’t let any of my cousins become more educated than me! 😉 )

I also saw Aunt Marge, Uncle Otto, Arlene & Stacey, Judy, Uncle Robin and Aunt Daphne. Omar (Jessica’s brother) was absent, but he and everyone else is coming over to my Aunt’s house tomorrow for christmas dinner. I’ll be sure to take lots of photos.

I woke up this morning to be told that US Airways had called and said that my bag had been found, and was on its way here to be delivered. That is definitely good news, but unfortunately they didn’t give an ETA, so I am sort of stuck here at the house until it arrives.

Just as well since I didn’t have any Christmas Eve plans anyways.

There is still the issue of getting compensation for the change of clothes that I had to buy (and am currently wearing).

I have made it to Newark safely (thank goodness). The ONE bag I checked (and the bags of half the other passengers on the plane) have not. US AIRWAYS LOST MY BAG ON A DOMESTIC FLIGHT. Apparently, my bags and those of my fellow passengers were not put on our connecting flight from Philadelphia (PHL) to Newark (EWR).

Here is a brief rundown of events:
-My flight (2846) lands on-time at 9:15 despite taking off 30 minutes late. We are forced to wait on the tarmac for 40 minutes while they try to decide what terminal to put us in (F27, our terminal was taken).
-The plane is put in terminal F29. The flight attendant tells us that our bags will automatically be transferred (I ask him again on my way out to be sure). I disembark and immediately walk to the terminal of my connecting flight in time to make it to the middle of the boarding for that flight (great timing). I worry about my bag making it over in time for take-off until the flight attendant announces that take-off is postponed in order to let 10 passengers from a connecting flight make it over in time to board.
-20 minutes later, at 11:40pm I disembark and meet my aunt at the luggage retrieval. We spend 20 minutes watching bags go round and round as a line forms at the lost baggage office (yes, there was a US Airways lost baggage OFFICE staffed with two people…. not a good sign). Half the passengers from my flight end up in the line. One guy traveling with his family was missing FIVE bags/suitcases.
-After an interminable wait in a fairly short lineInformation about my bag is taken, and I am given a record of the baggage claim along with a brochure on the apporpriate numbers to call. It is now almost 2AM. We drive home.
-I am told that once my bags are located, they will be delivered to me at my Aunt’s house. So for the time being, I have nothing except the clothes on my back, my cell phone, and a portable DVD player. LUCKILY, I had not checked my winter coat and hat… but i have no toothbrush or change of clothes… or the PS2 I had packed (which BETTER be there when my bag arrives).
-I spend the next day calling the automated line before I track down the phone number for the lost baggage office in EWR airport and the phone number for Deborah Thompson, the Director of Customer Affairs. The workers in the lost baggage office are curt, almost to the point of rudeness. I call on Mrs.Thompson, but get no answer, so I leave a message on her voicemail. Subsequent web-sleuthing reveals that the one flight from PHL to EWR (which theoretically could have ferried the bags to us) that day was canceled. The reason given was inclement weather, but rain in these areas was light.

So now its 9:26, 22 hours after my flight landed. According to flight schedules, the first flight from PHL to EWR lands at 10:30AM, with 2 more flights throughout the day. So, hopefully my things will arrive. I hadn’t originally planned to check any baggage, but I was forced to after I remembered that there was a small swiss army knife on my keychain (a gift for being a groomsman in Brannon’s wedding). Rest assured, I won’t make that mistake again (or the bigger mistake of flying on US Airways).

I spent ~$45 on a change of clothes for tomorrow and possible Saturday. According to the EWR lost baggage office, in order to get reimbursed I must first contact a LIVE PERSON on the US Airways lost baggage phone system (which has thus far proven impossible as the phone system says it is too busy and hangs up on you), and get it authorized.

A google search on US Airways and lost baggage turned up this gem from a blog (about lost baggage on US Airways) almost exactly one year previous to this date. One of the same aiports was involved, too (PHL).

US Airways SUCKS.

Well, I was all set to leave for the airport at 5:30 in the morning to make my 8:20 flight. I packed the bag and printed up my flight schedule. I was examining it when I noticed that the times were PM instead of AM… which meant that I had to call my aunt (who was supposed to pick me up at the airport) and my old roommate (who was to drive me to the airport) at midnight to cancel and rearrange plans.

It sucks that I didn’t realize the actual times when I booked the flight, but its a good thing I did eventually notice. Besides upsetting my aunt, I would have had to spend 12+ hours at the airport here in Atlanta.

One bad thing that did come out of this is that I’d made plans to visit my friend from elementary school, Beth, whom I haven’t seen in 10-11 years. She is flying out the morning after I leave, so who knows if I will be able to catch up with her, as she lives a little over an hour away from my aunt’s house.

I need to make new plans for getting to and from the airport. Unfortunately, my 8 oclock departure time means that:
1. I will have to get to the airport around rush hour. -I’ll probably have to take MARTA to avoid subjecting my friends to the stagnant gridlock that is the downtown connector during christmas season rush hour
2. I will have to be picked up from Newark airport at midnight, as my flight lands at 11:30pm. I can’t think of an easy way around having my aunt come get me (she lives about an hour from the airport).

The end of year holiday season is here, and my ma, pa, & sis decided to go to New York City to visit my family. For those of you who might not know (or might have forgotten), I was born in NYC and lived there until I was 8 years old. Most of my aunts and uncles still live there.

I opted out of the Thanksgiving NYC trip last year because I did not want to spend 12 hours in the car. I had the same dilemna this time around; I wanted to visit my family (whom I have not seen in years), but I did not want to spend 2 days of my vacation driving in a car with 4 other people (the trip takes 12 hours). After much hesitation, I decided to book a flight. $224 round trip. Expensive, but at least I don’t have to dread the drive home to TN and then to & back from NYC.

My aunt actually now lives in Newark, NJ, so that is where I am flying to. I have one day to pack and make arrangements to get to the airport, get picked up from the airport, etc.

I haven’t been to NYC in a while, so I am trying to find contact info for the people I know that live there. So far all i have come up with is Beth O’Brien (from 4th grade) and Dennis Delima (from college). I have phone numbers for niether person, so odds are that I wont’ get to see them.

I leave Wednesday the 22nd of Dec and come back Wed the 29th of Dec. My parents should arrive late Friday the 24th.

In other news:

-I tried to track down a friend from high school, sort of out the blue. The impetus for the search was a dream I had the night before… which is strange because their appearance in the dream was totally out of the blue, so decided to regard it as an omen. No luck so far, but I did contact the family of a friend of hers from college.
More news later if anything develops.

-The gym staff had a christmas party tonight at the wild wing cafe up in Suwanee. Al and David brought a friend of theirs named Joy, a girl Al cheered with in school. Joy was exquisite. She doesn’t live in town, but that’s a phone number I’ve got to get.

-Arranged to mod a ps2 for a little extra spending $, but the chip would not function… despite having all of the correct wires properly attached. It was a DMS3+ in a V4 gap console… which are apparently notorious for not being compatible. I’ve since come to the conclusion that DMS3 is junk, and v4 gap is NOT worth the effort. The owner is going to try to install a Matrix Infinity per my recommendation.

-kevin

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Accidents happen, so it’s reassuring to know that you’re covered financially if you’re involved in one.

Why is car insurance necessary?
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